Nacho Calderón Castro gives Exaudi readers this series of articles dedicated to the 10 Commandments in the Educate in Faith series.
The Commandments: The tenth, the ninth, the eighth.
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The Seventh Commandment, in Exodus, 20, 15, is “Thou shalt not steal.”
Nothing more can be added. Clear as water. Except, like everything, it is subject to interpretation. And, at least, in Spain, we love to open exceptions:
- If we go to a theme park and see that in the price list, children under 6 years old do not pay… we will do everything possible to convince, first the child and then the ticket office staff, that our third child is 5 years old – even if he has two months until he turns 7, but as he is short as his father, he sneaks in
- We can be at work chatting, looking at Facebook, or going down to breakfast two or three times, but when the time comes the pen falls out of our hand, and we leave everything half done, because “my time is my time.”
- When going to a restaurant we must always check the bill, lest it be “they sneak it in”, but if they have forgotten to put in one or two beers, it does not occur to us to say that they are charging us less.
We have the mentality of the civil code. Up to 1,000 euros is not theft, it is robbery – it does not count as a crime. Not even as a sin.
And we became wider than long.
Not to mention the divorced father who skimps on his children’s support to the extreme or simply abstains from paying it. Or the divorced mother who inflates the expense reports for her children to get her “ex” out of his liver, spleen and right lung – (I know why – by whom – I say it).
Also, the very widespread topic today of political corruption – in any country in the world -, of the police being bitten in Mexico, etc.
And it would be a matter of reviewing how the payment of taxes on goods that we never or rarely receive can be valued – I am thinking of the famous “withholding” in the worker’s salary for training, which as the percentage of people who use it, it is absolutely ridiculous, it only serves to increase the coffers of who knows who and how they spend it.
In short, we tend to continue thinking that “stealing” is what the thief with a mask does in the dark of the night or the pickpocket in the Madrid subway, but I’m afraid that here we can also say that when we stone someone who is caught “in flagrante delicto”, there are few who can start throwing stones.
Well, “thou shalt not steal” is neither more nor less than that. Perhaps it did not fit into the tables of the law, but it did not set a minimum from which it could be considered exempt. Every stick that holds its sail.
THE 7TH COMMANDMENT
Educate in faith
you will not steal
Nacho Calderón Castro – Voices
